Jim Killock’s blog

I just wanted to post about this, because the Open Rights Group’s new site Statebook, seems to be hitting a nerve, judging by the interest the site is getting in the first two days of this bank holiday.

You may have seen the extensive coverage of the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust’s Database State report a couple of weeks a go. Our new site tries to make the information in that report easily accessible, and to highlight the new concerns around “Intercept Modernisation”. These are the government’s new plans for snooping on our internet communications.

Take a look, email your MP, and spread the word.

What a frightening thought the idea of Stalinist regimes running a microchipped society might be. Holding all your data, recording your votes, perfect surveillance …

Some bright individual in Hackney however thinks this is a real goer, and has launched the Direct Democracy (Communist) Party, believing that perfect planning could be achieved by computer based distribution networks. This party wants “the control of production and distribution by all the workers through the networking of their computers to the central computer.”

Meanwhile the Stalinists will guarantee “the direct participation of all workers in administration of the state”. Or vice-versa, maybe.

The party has a website. Perhaps in a sign of things to come, it isn’t working.

I have to wait for a response from the copyright claimants, say Youtube. They have 14 working days to respond, which ends next week.

Last year, I helped put together some videos, all using Creative Commons-licensed music. I was careful to do this, as I didn’t want to put the Greens in legal danger, and wanted to support the work of artists who wish to fully embrace the changes that the web is bringing on.

Now, one of these videos, featuring Siân Berry has been pulled because of an alleged copyright violation. The video features Siân working through a Subterranean Homesick Blues style scene where she presents a set of cards saying how CO2 emissions were being put in unreadably small type on car ads, or not at all. (Her campaign won the argument by the way)

Anyway, not wanting to annoy Bob, or break copyright law, we chose another track, by the very generous Paul Westerberg, who released his track Lookin up in Heaven under a Creative Commons License.

Then Youtube pulled the video last week after identifying the music rights as belonging to UMG. UMG are Westerberg’s publisher and they’ve identified the audio rights as belonging to them through Youtube’s audio and ‘Video identification tool’ which allows ‘content owners’ to submit their files for comparison with Youtube user content.

It looks clear to me that UMG have simply forgot that Paul Westerberg released his track for mashing up. I expect the same applies to quite a few other CC works that have otherwise been released by labels.

I’m thinking, if Youtube are prepared to defend labels’ use of copyrighted works, why shouldn’t they offer the same service to Creative Commons organisations? Paul’s work could easily be identified by the same system as having been released under a use it as you like license, and UMG could be told that this work cannot be the subject of an automated copyright claim.

I think this is quite important for Creative Commons to think about. The most popular works they release are often by published and popular artists, and lazy record companies are unlikely to be carefully noting where their rights have been relaxed.

And Creative Commons users are not likely to be too keen to get into copyright disputes with big labels: they are much more likely to drop the matter and let Youtube delete their work.

I however have supplied my contact details to Youtube and presumably UMG’s lawyers, and wait to see if I end up in court in California.

The Assembly it seems is still clamouring for a bit of substance to devolution, but as yet the Welsh people are rather divided about it.

A very slim majority would like more power, but under the pressure of a hard fought campaign, fears about taxes or raving nationalism could easily scare off enough voters to stop anything happening.

There is a simple answer, I believe, which is to wait for the Tories to win an election.

The impetus for devolution in Wales came from a sense of identity, albeit a sense that is somewhat contested. But what many of the opponents of further power for the Assembly share with those who want it is, I suspect, a left-leaning, socially-inclined politics.

The strongest opponents, after all, were from the Welsh valleys, many of whom were traditional Labour voters whose communities had consciously reconstructed the Welsh identity as one that looked to class rather than nation. I’ll spare readers the history lesson, and cut to the quick:

These people won’t like it when they have a Tory government. Suddenly, faced with cuts to the NHS, social services, education, you name it, devolution will make a lot of sense.

That’s when the pressure for the Assembly to stand up to Westminster bullies will build up. Political institutions need to stand up for their communities in order to create democratic legitimacy. While the Assembly has tried to do this in a small way, I think the divergence of UK and Welsh politics is likely to create a dynamic to make this much more obvious to many more people.

If I was in Welsh politics right now – which I am not any longer – that would be my advice to pro-devolutionists in Labour and Plaid Cymru.

Hold fire, see if the Tories win an election and have a fight with them. Only then will the whole of Wales have a chance to see why devolved politics makes sense, and that’s the time to ask for powers to protect Wales from the ravages of the Tories.

Well, I didn’t get elected as Chair, rather the very talented Mr James Humphreys did, which I am right now very pleased about. While losing an election is always a disappointment, I am certain that James is the right man for the job, with real top level political experience and a very tight organisational approach. And I’ll get a break.

Being on the executive is a double edged sword. Running a political party is a tremendous opportunity and responsibility, as your success or failure impacts both on all members of the party and the future of the politics of the nation. I know to some that might sound over the top, but the fact is that the Greens will before long be challenging the Lib Dems to be the third party in Britain.

I think we got a bit of taste of that this weekend. Caroline Lucas is a passionate and convincing communicator, and Adrian Ramsay is a politician with real commitment and understanding whose direct and down to earth street politics is already beginning to worry Charles Clarke. Both demonstrated that they are politicians of rank, more than worth electing to Westminster.

The other side of being on the Executive is that it can be thankless task. People are very ready to criticise and some people have a talent for assuming the worst motives of people.

I’ve no doubt that the next two years are going to be extremely challenging for the Greens, just as they will be for any small party, with two nation-wide elections to fight.

But we have a very talented Executive, and leaders, and I for one will be doing everything I can to help them succeed. I urge everyone else to do the same. The future of Britain, and the world, will be better or worse for how well we do.

I hought i’d just point to a couple of blogs that have been generated in the last day or two: the Lib Dem’s Quaquam blog predicting that we will start to threaten them now we have elected Caroline Lucas as leader, and noting our ‘seriousness of purpose’ in the London elections. Good also to see some Greens engaging in debate there.

For Welsh speakers, blogMenai notes our growth in Brighton and Norwich with interest and enthusiasm, and asks why the Welsh Greens haven’t raised a more distinct Welsh identity, attributing our lack of success there to this factor.

We have of course secured quite a few community councillors in Wales, including three in nearby Conwy and Llandudno this year, but I think Wales Green Party needs to take a look on some basic things, like its membership systems, which I am sure are restricting its growth. It also should think about promoting its genuinely distinct Welsh identity, which I know to be there, despite Menai Blog’s difficulty in finding it.

Just a quick apology for my silence over the last three weeks. I’ve been rather busy doing some design work, which you can see over here. Full credit for the project, however, has to go to the party staff, in particular Siân Berry, Gary Dunion and Jon Nott, who have co-ordinated the project and drew up the page plans.

We turned this round in an amazingly short time, and the other credit for this has to go to MODx CMS, a great open source CMS package, which has proven excellent and very flexible. Its power lies in being very extensible, but from my point of view, the fact you can implement your designs easily from scratch without having to bodge through code was the biggest reason why this was a quick project, along with some hard behind the scenes work porting the content.

Like any good Green Party project, local and grassroots activity is of great importance, and the press team have taken a strong emphasis on promoting our local and regional activity, which should give traffic to our local sites a welcome boost.

This month, Green Party membership began to grow. In two quiet summer months, the number of paid up members will have increased by around about 150 by the time Conference starts. Sometime next year, the party will have passed 8,000 members for the first time in twenty years, and in two years, should be closing in on the psychologically important 10,000 mark.

How is it that I can make this claim with any certainty? Well, part of it is a definite trend to better publicity and media presence over the last 12 months, with Caroline Lucas and Siân Berry gaining increasing presence in print and television.

Caroline’s strong message about policing and the climate camp, and then a full page in yesterday’s Independent has pulled in a bunch of members, much as happened in London during the Mayoral campaign.

But there is a much more basic reason: nearly all the new members have joined using Direct Debit. Around 800 new members used Direct Debit when they joined this year. Very few of them will lapse next year, as they will simply pay their subs automatically. Historically, it seems that most new members would lapse after one or two years.

This August, the first of 70 of these DD members renewed successfully. Every month from now on, more members will renew without the palaver of renewal notices and forms in the post.

Over the year, with a big election coming up, we should see at least 1,000 new members join: and again, most of these will not lapse. We should be on for steady membership growth over the next two to four years, along with higher party income as a result.

And with more efforts from local parties to recruit, we can go onto even greater success, meaning more grassroots activity, more involvement, and more democratic action from Greens at all levels of government.

The challenge, of course, is to get new members active. They are most enthusiastic when they join. They will want to do things which are meaningful, and contribute to real successes. Just as importantly, we need to show that we have a strong participatory democracy, where people’s views are respected.

Nearly every other political party’s membership is declining. The Green Party – even as recession bites and money gets tight – is likely to be the only major party whose membership is growing.

[ Technical note: because we count everyone up to 6 months overdue as a member, these increases will only be visible in the membership figures in six months time, although the increased income will be visible from now on in ]

The ballot papers for the Leadership election and Executive have arrived on my doormat today. All looks nice and efficient – which is great.

The toughest call for me is Chair. I’m standing but I think James is a great candidate. We’re offering different things, I think. James Humphreys has greater external experience, including at Downing Street, whereas I’ve perhaps done more internally.

But please give this one some thought. I’m not counting on your vote – you should make the choice that you think best suits the party.

[ UPDATE: See Rupert Read, Green Diplomat and Charlie Bolton. ]